Brian Treanor | Loyola Marymount University (original) (raw)
Books by Brian Treanor
Melancholic Joy: On Life Worth Living, 2021
See the link for a "widget" supplied by Bloomsbury, which will give you access to the first chapt... more See the link for a "widget" supplied by Bloomsbury, which will give you access to the first chapter.
https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/6006a9a5e21b8400014cc025
Today, we find ourselves surrounded by numerous reasons to despair, from loneliness, suffering and death at an individual level to societal alienation, oppression, sectarian conflict and war. No honest assessment of life can take place without facing up to these facts and it is not surprising that more and more people are beginning to suspect that the human story will end in tragedy.
However, this focus on despair does not paint a complete and accurate picture of reality, which is also inflected with beauty and goodness. Working with examples from poetry and literature, including Virginia Woolf and Jack Gilbert and the films of Terrence Malick, Melancholic Joy offers an honest assessment of the human condition. It unflinchingly acknowledges the everyday frustrations and extraordinary horrors that generate despair and argues that the appropriate response is to take up joy again, not in an attempt to ignore or dismiss evil, but rather as part of a “melancholic joy” that accepts the mystery of a world both beautiful and brutal.
Despite its ancient roots, virtue ethics has only recently been fully appreciated as a resource f... more Despite its ancient roots, virtue ethics has only recently been fully appreciated as a resource for environmental philosophy. Other approaches dominated by utilitarian and duty-based appeals for sacrifice and restraint have had little success in changing behavior, even to the extent that ecological concerns have been embraced. Our actions often do not align with our beliefs. Fundamental to virtue ethics is an acknowledgment that neither good ethical rules nor good intentions are effective absent the character required to bring them to fulfillment. Brian Treanor builds on recent work on virtue ethics in environmental philosophy, finding an important grounding in the narrative theory of philosophers like Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Character and ethical formation, Treanor argues, are intimately tied to our relationship with the narratives through which we view the human place in the natural world. By reframing environmental questions in terms of individual, social, and environmental narratives about flourishing, Emplotting Virtue offers a powerful vision of how we might remake our character so as to live more happily, more sustainably, and more virtuously in a diverse, beautiful, wondrous, and fragile world.
CHAPTER 1
Just What Sort of Person Would Do That?
Introduction
Moral Reasoning in Contemporary Ethics
Virtue Ethics
CHAPTER 2
Virtue Ethics and Environmental Virtue Ethics
Virtue and Flourishing
The Middle Way
Emotion and Action
Virtue and the Environment
CHAPTER 3
Virtue: A Constellation of Concerns
Virtue and Living Well
A Typology of Virtue: Individual, Social, and Environmental
CHAPTER 4
A Story of Simplicity: A Case Study in Virtue
The Scope of Simplicity: More Than Material Restraint
The Scope of Simplicity: A ‘Comprehensive’ Virtue
Thoreau’s Narrative
CHAPTER 5
The Challenge of Postmodernity
The Imprecision and Variability of Virtue Ethics
The Postmodern Condition
Postmodern Temptations: Hamlet’s Indecision and Meursault’s Indifference
“Postmodern” Virtue Ethics
CHAPTER 6
Narrative Theory: Stories and Our Lives
Paul Ricoeur and Narrative Identity
Richard Kearney and Narrative Epiphanies
Martha Nussbaum and the Judicious Spectator
Wayne Booth and Coduction
Objections: The Return of Relativism and the Excesses of Imagination
CHAPTER 7
Narrative Environmental Virtue Ethics
Introduction: Ethical Formation and Reformation
Ethical Education: Motivation and Transmission
Ethical Experimentation: Discernment and Understanding
Ethical Formation: Application and Cultivation
CHAPTER 8
Epilogue: The “Narrative Goodness” Approach
The Need for Virtue Ethics and the Need for Narrative
Three Important Clarifications
The Literature of Life: A Life Worth Living, a Story Worth Telling
"Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other." This is the claim that Aspects of Alt... more "Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other." This is the claim that Aspects of Alterity defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self.
Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. Such a self-centered perspective never encounters the other qua other, however. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim "every other is wholly other." But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions—absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness—are the main contenders in the contemporary debate.
The philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel provide the point of embarkation for coming to understand the two positions on this question. Levinas and Marcel were contemporaries whose philosophies exhibit remarkably similar concern for the other but nevertheless remain fundamentally incompatible. Thus, these two thinkers provide a striking illustration of both the proximity of and the unbridgeable gap between two accounts of otherness.
Aspects of Alterity delves into this debate, first in order understand the issues at stake in these two positions and second to determine which description better accounts for the experience of encountering the other.
After a thorough assessment and critique of otherness in Levinas's and Marcel's work, including a discussion of the relationship of ethical alterity to theological assumptions, Aspects of Alterity traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney.
Ultimately, Aspects of Alterity makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude. Properly articulated, such an account is capable of addressing the legitimate ethical and epistemological concerns that lead thinkers to construe otherness in absolute terms, but without the "absolute aporias" that accompany such a characterization.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: THE QUESTION OF OTHERNESS
CHAPTER TWO: EMMANUEL LEVINAS
Transcendental Phenomenology: Metaphysics Precedes Ontology
The Same and the Other
Justice and Love
CHAPTER THREE: GABRIEL MARCEL
Concrete Existential Philosophy
The Self and the Other: Intersubjectivity
Love and Justice
CHAPTER FOUR: TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY
Philosophers of Dialogue
The Generic Critique
The Specific Critiques
An Uneasy Kinship: Marcel and the Transcendental Critique
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCRETE PHILOSOPHY
Levinas and his Readers
Marcelian Critiques
CHAPTER SIX: THE OTHER AND GOD
A Brief Review: Justice and Love
Absolute Alterity versus Relative Alterity: A Preliminary Sketch
The Alterity of the Other and the Alterity of God
Two Ways of Encountering God
Levinas and Judaism
Buber and Judaism
Faith and the Irreducibility of First Principles
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE NATURE OF OTHERNESS
Absolute Otherness and Relative Otherness: Two Possible Reconciliations
Otherness in the Contemporary Debate
Alterity, Similitude, Otherness
Conclusion
Anacarnation, 2023
This edited collection responds to Richard Kearney’s recent work on touch, excarnation, and emb... more This edited collection responds to Richard Kearney’s recent work on touch, excarnation, and embodiment, as well as his broader work in carnal hermeneutics, which sets the stage for his return to and retrieval of the senses of the lived body.
Here, fourteen scholars engage the breadth and depth of Kearney’s work to illuminate our experience of the body. The chapters collected within take up a wide variety of subjects, from nature and non-human animals to our experience of the sacred and the demonic, and from art’s account of touching to the political implications of various types of embodiment. Featuring also an inspired new reflection from Kearney himself, in which he lays out his vision for “anacarnation,” this volume is an important statement about the centrality of touch and embodiment in our experience, and a reminder that, despite the excarnating tendencies of contemporary life, the lived body remains a touchstone for wisdom in our increasingly complicated and fragile world.
Written for scholars and students interested in touch, embodiment, phenomenology, and hermeneutics, this diverse and challenging collection contributes to a growing field of scholarship that recognizes and attempts to correct the excarnating trends in philosophy and in culture at large.
Philosophy in the American West, 2020
Building on a hermeneutic tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misund... more Building on a hermeneutic tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misunderstood, or underdeveloped, this work initiates a new field of study and concern.
Carnal Hermeneutics provides a philosophical approach to the body as interpretation. Transcending the traditional dualism of rational understanding and embodied sensibility, the volume argues that our most carnal sensations are already interpretations. Because interpretation truly goes “all the way down,” carnal hermeneutics rejects the opposition of language to sensibility, word to flesh, text to body.
In this volume, an impressive array of today’s preeminent philosophers seek to interpret the surplus of meaning that arises from our carnal embodiment, its role in our experience and understanding, and its engagement with the wider world.
Contents
Introduction: From Head to Foot
Richard Kearney and Brian Treanor
WHY CARNAL HERMENEUTICS?
The Wager of Carnal Hermeneutics
Richard Kearney
Mind the Gap: The Challenge of Matter
Brian Treanor
RETHINKING THE FLESH
Rethinking Corpus
Jean-Luc Nancy
From the Limbs of the Heart to the Soul’s Organs
Jean-Louis Chretien
A Tragedy and a Dream: Disability Revisited
Julia Kristeva
Incarnation and the Problem of Touch
Michel Henry
On the Phenomena of Suffering
Jean-Luc Marion
Memory, History, Oblivion
Paul Ricoeur
MATTERS OF TOUCH
Skin Deep: Bodies Edging into Place
Ed Casey
Touched by Touching
David Wood
Umbilicus: Toward a Hermeneutics of Generational Difference
Anne O’Byrne
Getting in Touch: Aristotelian Diagnostics
Emmanuel Alloa
Between Vision and Touch: From Husserl to Merleau-Ponty
Dermot Moran
Biodiversity and the Diacritics of Life
Ted Toadvine
DIVINE BODIES
The Passion According to Teresa of Avila
Julia Kristeva
Refiguring Wounds in the Afterlife (of Trauma)
Shelly Rambo
This Is My Body
Emmanuel Falque
Original Breath
Karmen MacKendrick
On the Flesh of the Word: Incarnational Hermeneutics
John Panteleimon Manoussakis
What is the proper relationship between human beings and the more-than-human world? This philosop... more What is the proper relationship between human beings and the more-than-human world? This philosophical question, which underlies vast environmental crises, forces us to investigate the tension between our extraordinary powers, which seem to set us apart from nature, even above it, and our thoroughgoing ordinariness, as revealed by the evolutionary history we share with all life.
The contributors to this volume ask us to consider whether the anxiety of unheimlichkeit, which in one form or another absorbed so much of twentieth-century philosophy, might reveal not our homelessness in the cosmos but a need for a fundamental belongingness and implacement in it.
Contents
The Human Place in the Natural World
Brian Treanor
Creation, Creativity, and Creatureliness
Rowan Williams
Rowan Williams and Ecological Rationality
Jarrod Longbons
The Art of Creaturely Life
Norman Wirzba
Face of Nature, Gift of Creation
Bruce Foltz
Creativity as Call to Care for Creation?
Christina M. Gschwandtner
Creature Discomforts
Jeffrey Hanson
Reflections from Thoreau’s Concord
Edward F. Mooney
Creation and the Glory of Creatures
Janet Martin Soskice
Care of the Soil, Care of the Self
T. Wilson Dickinson
Dream Writing Beyond a Wounded World
Susan Pyke
The twentieth century saw the rise of hermeneutics, the philosophical interpretation of texts, an... more The twentieth century saw the rise of hermeneutics, the philosophical interpretation of texts, and eventually the application of its insights to metaphorical “texts” such as individual and group identities. It also saw the rise of modern environmentalism, which evolved through various stages in which it came to realize that many of its key concerns—“wilderness” and “nature” among them—are contested territory that are viewed differently by different people. Understanding nature requires science and ecology to be sure, but it also requires a sensitivity to history, culture, and narrative. Thus, understanding nature is a fundamentally hermeneutic task. Interpreting Nature brings together leading voices at the intersection of these two increasingly important philosophical discussions: philosophical hermeneutics and environmental philosophy. The resulting field, environmental hermeneutics, provides the center of gravity for a collection of essays that grapple with one of the most compelling issues of our time: how do humans relate to nature? Adopting a broad and inclusive view of “the environment, Interpreting Nature takes up restoration and preservation, natural and built environments, the social construction of nature and nature as it imposes itself beyond our categories, and much more. The rich diversity of contributions illustrates the remarkable fecundity of hermeneutic resources applied to environmental issues. Taken together, the various contributions to this collection mark the arrival of environmental hermeneutics as a distinct field of study.
The twentieth century saw the rise of hermeneutics, the philosophical interpretation of texts, an... more The twentieth century saw the rise of hermeneutics, the philosophical interpretation of texts, and eventually the application of its insights to metaphorical “texts” such as individual and group identities. It also saw the rise of modern environmentalism, which evolved through various stages in which it came to realize that many of its key concerns—“wilderness” and “nature” among them—are contested territory that are viewed differently by different people. Understanding nature requires science and ecology to be sure, but it also requires a sensitivity to history, culture, and narrative. Thus, understanding nature is a fundamentally hermeneutic task. Interpreting Nature brings together leading voices at the intersection of these two increasingly important philosophical discussions: philosophical hermeneutics and environmental philosophy. The resulting field, environmental hermeneutics, provides the center of gravity for a collection of essays that grapple with one of the most compelling issues of our time: how do humans relate to nature? Adopting a broad and inclusive view of “the environment, Interpreting Nature takes up restoration and preservation, natural and built environments, the social construction of nature and nature as it imposes itself beyond our categories, and much more. The rich diversity of contributions illustrates the remarkable fecundity of hermeneutic resources applied to environmental issues. Taken together, the various contributions to this collection mark the arrival of environmental hermeneutics as a distinct field of study.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Environmental Hermeneutics
By David Utsler, Forrest Clingerman, Brian Treanor, and Martin Drenthen
SECTION I: INTERPRETATION AND THE TASK OF THINKING ENVIRONMENTALLY
Chapter 1: Hermeneutics Deep in the Woods
John van Buren, Fordham University
Chapter 2: " Morrow’s Ants: E. O. Wilson and Gadamer’s Critique of (Natural) Historicism"
Mick Smith, Queens University
Chapter 3: "Layering: Body, Building, Biography"
Robert Mugerauer, University of Washington
Chapter 4: "Might Nature Be Interpreted as a 'Saturated Phenomenon'?"
Christina M. Gschwandtner, University of Scranton
Chapter 5: "Must Environmental Philosophy Relinquish the Concept of Nature? A Hermeneutic Reply to Steven Vogel”
W. S. K. Cameron, Loyola Marymount University
SECTION II: ISSUES OF ENVIRONMENTAL HERMENEUTICS
A. SITUATING THE SELF
Chapter 6: "Environmental Hermeneutics and Environmental/Eco-Psychology: Explorations in Environmental Identity"
David Utsler, University of North Texas
Chapter 7: "Environmental Hermeneutics With and For Others: Ricoeur’s Ethics and The Ecological Self”
Nathan Bell, University of North Texas
Chapter 8: "Bodily Moods and Unhomely Environments: The Hermeneutics of Agoraphobia and the Spirit of Place”
Dylan Trigg, University of Sussex
B. NARRATIVITY AND IMAGE
Chapter 9: "Narrative and Nature: Appreciating and Understanding the Non-Human World"
Brian Treanor, Loyola Marymount University
Chapter 10: " The Question Concerning Nature"
Sean McGrath, Memorial University
Chapter 11: "New Nature Narratives: Landscape Hermeneutics and Environmental Ethics”
Martin Drenthen, Radboud University Nijmegen
C. ENVIRONMENTS, PLACE, AND THE EXPERIENCE OF TIME
Chapter 12: "Memory, Imagination, and the Hermeneutics of Place"
Forrest Clingerman, Ohio Northern University
Chapter 13: "The Betweenness of Monuments"
Janet Donohoe, University of West Georgia
Chapter 14: "My Place in the Sun"
David Wood, Vanderbilt University
Chapter 15: "How Hermeneutics Might Save the Life of (Environmental) Ethics"
Paul Van Tongeren, Radboud University Nijmegen and Paulien Snellen, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Paul Ricoeur's entire philosophical project narrates a "passion for the possible" expressed in th... more Paul Ricoeur's entire philosophical project narrates a "passion for the possible" expressed in the hope that in spite of death, closure, and sedimentation, life is opened by superabundance, by how the world gives us much more than is possible. Ricoeur's philosophical anthropology is a phenomenology of human capacity, which gives onto the groundless ground of human being, namely, God. Thus the story of the capable man, beginning with original goodness held captive by a servile will and ending with the possibility of liberation and regeneration of the heart, underpins his passion for the more than possible.
The essays in this volume trace the fluid movement between phenomenological and religious descriptions of the capable self that emerges across Ricoeur's oeuvre and establish points of connection for future developments that might draw inspiration from this body of thought.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: How Much More Than the Possible?
Brian Treanor and Henry Isaac Venema
Asserting Personal Capacities and Pleading for Mutual Recognition
Paul Ricoeur
Religious Belief: The Difficult Path of the Religious
Paul Ricoeur
Remembering Paul Ricoeur
David Pellauer
Capable Man, Capable God
Richard Kearney
The Source of Ricoeur’s Double Allegiance
Henry Isaac Venema
The Golden Rule and Forgiveness
Gaelle Fiasse
Toward Which Recognition?
Jean Greisch
Paul Ricoeur and Development Ethics
David M. Kaplan
Narrative Matters among the Mlabri: Interpretive Anthropology in
International Development
Ellen A. Herda
The Place of Remembrance: Reflections on Paul Ricoeur’s Theory
of Collective Memory
Jeffrey Andrew Barash
Refiguring Virtue
Boyd Blundell
Emplotting Virtue: Narrative and the Good Life
Brian Treanor
Preserving the Eidetic Moment: Reflections on the Work of Paul
Ricoeur
David Rasmussen
Articles and Book Chapters by Brian Treanor
Thinking Film, 2023
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photo... more The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research," If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.
The Philosophers' Magazine, 2022
Brian Treanor argues for the importance of art, literature, poetry and philosophy even in the fac... more Brian Treanor argues for the importance of art, literature, poetry and philosophy even in the face of a burning world.
SubStance
Michel Serres was an exemplarily idiosyncratic thinker, idiosyncratic coming from the Greek idios... more Michel Serres was an exemplarily idiosyncratic thinker, idiosyncratic coming from the Greek idiosunkrasia (idios, "own," and krasis, "mixture"). His life and work exhibit a unique mixture of characteristics not often seen in combination: interests in the sciences and the humanities; deep learning with broad accessibility; theoretical sophistication and, at the same time, fidelity to and love for concrete experience, carnal embodiment, and hard (le dur) reality. And, of course, the notion of idiosyncrasy also testifies to Serres's interest in and particular experience of "mixed reality," which he developed in Le Cinq Sens and other works. 1
Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition (JPACT), 2018
Introduction to the first volume of the Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tr... more Introduction to the first volume of the Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition
Diakrisis Yearbook of Theology and Philosophy, 2018
Continental philosophy has maintained an abiding interest in transcendence; however, that interes... more Continental philosophy has maintained an abiding interest in transcendence; however, that interest has been shaped by the geographical, historical, and cultural milieu in which continental philosophy developed. But today "continental" philosophy is pursued beyond the boundaries of continental Europe, and it behooves us to ask what might be contributed to phenomenological and hermeneutic accounts of transcendence by traditions rooted in other places, other continents. Some of the first distinctive philosophical contributions of North America-"philosophical" in the sense that term is used in "Western" philosophy-are to be found in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, in particular, gave voice to a very different view of transcendence. Thoreau and those thinking in his wake-Henry Bugbee, Annie Dillard, and others-think transcendence in terms of nature, particularly wilderness, in terms of contact, and in terms of wandering or itinerancy. Here transcendence is less about trans-ascendance and its focus on another world, and more about a mode of living deeply in this world.
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photo... more The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research," If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.
Today we are faced with all the traditional reasons to despair: poverty, loneliness, loss, traged... more Today we are faced with all the traditional reasons to despair: poverty, loneliness, loss, tragedy, death, and the like. And, for many, this despair is exacerbated by either the modern disenchantment of the world, or a postmodern suspicion regarding grand narratives (especially those speculating about transcendence), or both. The news of the day sounds a relentless drumbeat of woe. As I write these words on a rainy morning in southern California—itself a depressing reminder of the apocalyptic drought my state is suffering, and the anthropogenic climate change that is likely to make such droughts more common and more severe—the headlines include: the ongoing brutality of the “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria; increasing tensions between Russia and the West, including frightening near-misses involving unregistered military aircraft; the stillsmoldering catastrophe of Ebola Zaire in West Africa (and parallel, though much less publicized, stories of MERS and H5N1, either of which, in a ...
Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy
This paper reflects on experiences of what i call vitality. Such experiences are neither idiosync... more This paper reflects on experiences of what i call vitality. Such experiences are neither idiosyncratic (they overlap major themes in Chinese philosophy, among other disciplines) nor mere romanticism (contemporary psychology lends credence to these accounts). Moreover, while some figures in continental philosophy do address the body—as perceiving, as sexed, as political—there has been almost no attention given to the active body of vitality. Drawing from the work of Michel Serres, this paper will uncover some of the significant features of such bodily experiences.
Melancholic Joy: On Life Worth Living, 2021
See the link for a "widget" supplied by Bloomsbury, which will give you access to the first chapt... more See the link for a "widget" supplied by Bloomsbury, which will give you access to the first chapter.
https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/6006a9a5e21b8400014cc025
Today, we find ourselves surrounded by numerous reasons to despair, from loneliness, suffering and death at an individual level to societal alienation, oppression, sectarian conflict and war. No honest assessment of life can take place without facing up to these facts and it is not surprising that more and more people are beginning to suspect that the human story will end in tragedy.
However, this focus on despair does not paint a complete and accurate picture of reality, which is also inflected with beauty and goodness. Working with examples from poetry and literature, including Virginia Woolf and Jack Gilbert and the films of Terrence Malick, Melancholic Joy offers an honest assessment of the human condition. It unflinchingly acknowledges the everyday frustrations and extraordinary horrors that generate despair and argues that the appropriate response is to take up joy again, not in an attempt to ignore or dismiss evil, but rather as part of a “melancholic joy” that accepts the mystery of a world both beautiful and brutal.
Despite its ancient roots, virtue ethics has only recently been fully appreciated as a resource f... more Despite its ancient roots, virtue ethics has only recently been fully appreciated as a resource for environmental philosophy. Other approaches dominated by utilitarian and duty-based appeals for sacrifice and restraint have had little success in changing behavior, even to the extent that ecological concerns have been embraced. Our actions often do not align with our beliefs. Fundamental to virtue ethics is an acknowledgment that neither good ethical rules nor good intentions are effective absent the character required to bring them to fulfillment. Brian Treanor builds on recent work on virtue ethics in environmental philosophy, finding an important grounding in the narrative theory of philosophers like Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Character and ethical formation, Treanor argues, are intimately tied to our relationship with the narratives through which we view the human place in the natural world. By reframing environmental questions in terms of individual, social, and environmental narratives about flourishing, Emplotting Virtue offers a powerful vision of how we might remake our character so as to live more happily, more sustainably, and more virtuously in a diverse, beautiful, wondrous, and fragile world.
CHAPTER 1
Just What Sort of Person Would Do That?
Introduction
Moral Reasoning in Contemporary Ethics
Virtue Ethics
CHAPTER 2
Virtue Ethics and Environmental Virtue Ethics
Virtue and Flourishing
The Middle Way
Emotion and Action
Virtue and the Environment
CHAPTER 3
Virtue: A Constellation of Concerns
Virtue and Living Well
A Typology of Virtue: Individual, Social, and Environmental
CHAPTER 4
A Story of Simplicity: A Case Study in Virtue
The Scope of Simplicity: More Than Material Restraint
The Scope of Simplicity: A ‘Comprehensive’ Virtue
Thoreau’s Narrative
CHAPTER 5
The Challenge of Postmodernity
The Imprecision and Variability of Virtue Ethics
The Postmodern Condition
Postmodern Temptations: Hamlet’s Indecision and Meursault’s Indifference
“Postmodern” Virtue Ethics
CHAPTER 6
Narrative Theory: Stories and Our Lives
Paul Ricoeur and Narrative Identity
Richard Kearney and Narrative Epiphanies
Martha Nussbaum and the Judicious Spectator
Wayne Booth and Coduction
Objections: The Return of Relativism and the Excesses of Imagination
CHAPTER 7
Narrative Environmental Virtue Ethics
Introduction: Ethical Formation and Reformation
Ethical Education: Motivation and Transmission
Ethical Experimentation: Discernment and Understanding
Ethical Formation: Application and Cultivation
CHAPTER 8
Epilogue: The “Narrative Goodness” Approach
The Need for Virtue Ethics and the Need for Narrative
Three Important Clarifications
The Literature of Life: A Life Worth Living, a Story Worth Telling
"Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other." This is the claim that Aspects of Alt... more "Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other." This is the claim that Aspects of Alterity defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self.
Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. Such a self-centered perspective never encounters the other qua other, however. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim "every other is wholly other." But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions—absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness—are the main contenders in the contemporary debate.
The philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel provide the point of embarkation for coming to understand the two positions on this question. Levinas and Marcel were contemporaries whose philosophies exhibit remarkably similar concern for the other but nevertheless remain fundamentally incompatible. Thus, these two thinkers provide a striking illustration of both the proximity of and the unbridgeable gap between two accounts of otherness.
Aspects of Alterity delves into this debate, first in order understand the issues at stake in these two positions and second to determine which description better accounts for the experience of encountering the other.
After a thorough assessment and critique of otherness in Levinas's and Marcel's work, including a discussion of the relationship of ethical alterity to theological assumptions, Aspects of Alterity traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney.
Ultimately, Aspects of Alterity makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude. Properly articulated, such an account is capable of addressing the legitimate ethical and epistemological concerns that lead thinkers to construe otherness in absolute terms, but without the "absolute aporias" that accompany such a characterization.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: THE QUESTION OF OTHERNESS
CHAPTER TWO: EMMANUEL LEVINAS
Transcendental Phenomenology: Metaphysics Precedes Ontology
The Same and the Other
Justice and Love
CHAPTER THREE: GABRIEL MARCEL
Concrete Existential Philosophy
The Self and the Other: Intersubjectivity
Love and Justice
CHAPTER FOUR: TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY
Philosophers of Dialogue
The Generic Critique
The Specific Critiques
An Uneasy Kinship: Marcel and the Transcendental Critique
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCRETE PHILOSOPHY
Levinas and his Readers
Marcelian Critiques
CHAPTER SIX: THE OTHER AND GOD
A Brief Review: Justice and Love
Absolute Alterity versus Relative Alterity: A Preliminary Sketch
The Alterity of the Other and the Alterity of God
Two Ways of Encountering God
Levinas and Judaism
Buber and Judaism
Faith and the Irreducibility of First Principles
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE NATURE OF OTHERNESS
Absolute Otherness and Relative Otherness: Two Possible Reconciliations
Otherness in the Contemporary Debate
Alterity, Similitude, Otherness
Conclusion
Anacarnation, 2023
This edited collection responds to Richard Kearney’s recent work on touch, excarnation, and emb... more This edited collection responds to Richard Kearney’s recent work on touch, excarnation, and embodiment, as well as his broader work in carnal hermeneutics, which sets the stage for his return to and retrieval of the senses of the lived body.
Here, fourteen scholars engage the breadth and depth of Kearney’s work to illuminate our experience of the body. The chapters collected within take up a wide variety of subjects, from nature and non-human animals to our experience of the sacred and the demonic, and from art’s account of touching to the political implications of various types of embodiment. Featuring also an inspired new reflection from Kearney himself, in which he lays out his vision for “anacarnation,” this volume is an important statement about the centrality of touch and embodiment in our experience, and a reminder that, despite the excarnating tendencies of contemporary life, the lived body remains a touchstone for wisdom in our increasingly complicated and fragile world.
Written for scholars and students interested in touch, embodiment, phenomenology, and hermeneutics, this diverse and challenging collection contributes to a growing field of scholarship that recognizes and attempts to correct the excarnating trends in philosophy and in culture at large.
Philosophy in the American West, 2020
Building on a hermeneutic tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misund... more Building on a hermeneutic tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misunderstood, or underdeveloped, this work initiates a new field of study and concern.
Carnal Hermeneutics provides a philosophical approach to the body as interpretation. Transcending the traditional dualism of rational understanding and embodied sensibility, the volume argues that our most carnal sensations are already interpretations. Because interpretation truly goes “all the way down,” carnal hermeneutics rejects the opposition of language to sensibility, word to flesh, text to body.
In this volume, an impressive array of today’s preeminent philosophers seek to interpret the surplus of meaning that arises from our carnal embodiment, its role in our experience and understanding, and its engagement with the wider world.
Contents
Introduction: From Head to Foot
Richard Kearney and Brian Treanor
WHY CARNAL HERMENEUTICS?
The Wager of Carnal Hermeneutics
Richard Kearney
Mind the Gap: The Challenge of Matter
Brian Treanor
RETHINKING THE FLESH
Rethinking Corpus
Jean-Luc Nancy
From the Limbs of the Heart to the Soul’s Organs
Jean-Louis Chretien
A Tragedy and a Dream: Disability Revisited
Julia Kristeva
Incarnation and the Problem of Touch
Michel Henry
On the Phenomena of Suffering
Jean-Luc Marion
Memory, History, Oblivion
Paul Ricoeur
MATTERS OF TOUCH
Skin Deep: Bodies Edging into Place
Ed Casey
Touched by Touching
David Wood
Umbilicus: Toward a Hermeneutics of Generational Difference
Anne O’Byrne
Getting in Touch: Aristotelian Diagnostics
Emmanuel Alloa
Between Vision and Touch: From Husserl to Merleau-Ponty
Dermot Moran
Biodiversity and the Diacritics of Life
Ted Toadvine
DIVINE BODIES
The Passion According to Teresa of Avila
Julia Kristeva
Refiguring Wounds in the Afterlife (of Trauma)
Shelly Rambo
This Is My Body
Emmanuel Falque
Original Breath
Karmen MacKendrick
On the Flesh of the Word: Incarnational Hermeneutics
John Panteleimon Manoussakis
What is the proper relationship between human beings and the more-than-human world? This philosop... more What is the proper relationship between human beings and the more-than-human world? This philosophical question, which underlies vast environmental crises, forces us to investigate the tension between our extraordinary powers, which seem to set us apart from nature, even above it, and our thoroughgoing ordinariness, as revealed by the evolutionary history we share with all life.
The contributors to this volume ask us to consider whether the anxiety of unheimlichkeit, which in one form or another absorbed so much of twentieth-century philosophy, might reveal not our homelessness in the cosmos but a need for a fundamental belongingness and implacement in it.
Contents
The Human Place in the Natural World
Brian Treanor
Creation, Creativity, and Creatureliness
Rowan Williams
Rowan Williams and Ecological Rationality
Jarrod Longbons
The Art of Creaturely Life
Norman Wirzba
Face of Nature, Gift of Creation
Bruce Foltz
Creativity as Call to Care for Creation?
Christina M. Gschwandtner
Creature Discomforts
Jeffrey Hanson
Reflections from Thoreau’s Concord
Edward F. Mooney
Creation and the Glory of Creatures
Janet Martin Soskice
Care of the Soil, Care of the Self
T. Wilson Dickinson
Dream Writing Beyond a Wounded World
Susan Pyke
The twentieth century saw the rise of hermeneutics, the philosophical interpretation of texts, an... more The twentieth century saw the rise of hermeneutics, the philosophical interpretation of texts, and eventually the application of its insights to metaphorical “texts” such as individual and group identities. It also saw the rise of modern environmentalism, which evolved through various stages in which it came to realize that many of its key concerns—“wilderness” and “nature” among them—are contested territory that are viewed differently by different people. Understanding nature requires science and ecology to be sure, but it also requires a sensitivity to history, culture, and narrative. Thus, understanding nature is a fundamentally hermeneutic task. Interpreting Nature brings together leading voices at the intersection of these two increasingly important philosophical discussions: philosophical hermeneutics and environmental philosophy. The resulting field, environmental hermeneutics, provides the center of gravity for a collection of essays that grapple with one of the most compelling issues of our time: how do humans relate to nature? Adopting a broad and inclusive view of “the environment, Interpreting Nature takes up restoration and preservation, natural and built environments, the social construction of nature and nature as it imposes itself beyond our categories, and much more. The rich diversity of contributions illustrates the remarkable fecundity of hermeneutic resources applied to environmental issues. Taken together, the various contributions to this collection mark the arrival of environmental hermeneutics as a distinct field of study.
The twentieth century saw the rise of hermeneutics, the philosophical interpretation of texts, an... more The twentieth century saw the rise of hermeneutics, the philosophical interpretation of texts, and eventually the application of its insights to metaphorical “texts” such as individual and group identities. It also saw the rise of modern environmentalism, which evolved through various stages in which it came to realize that many of its key concerns—“wilderness” and “nature” among them—are contested territory that are viewed differently by different people. Understanding nature requires science and ecology to be sure, but it also requires a sensitivity to history, culture, and narrative. Thus, understanding nature is a fundamentally hermeneutic task. Interpreting Nature brings together leading voices at the intersection of these two increasingly important philosophical discussions: philosophical hermeneutics and environmental philosophy. The resulting field, environmental hermeneutics, provides the center of gravity for a collection of essays that grapple with one of the most compelling issues of our time: how do humans relate to nature? Adopting a broad and inclusive view of “the environment, Interpreting Nature takes up restoration and preservation, natural and built environments, the social construction of nature and nature as it imposes itself beyond our categories, and much more. The rich diversity of contributions illustrates the remarkable fecundity of hermeneutic resources applied to environmental issues. Taken together, the various contributions to this collection mark the arrival of environmental hermeneutics as a distinct field of study.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Environmental Hermeneutics
By David Utsler, Forrest Clingerman, Brian Treanor, and Martin Drenthen
SECTION I: INTERPRETATION AND THE TASK OF THINKING ENVIRONMENTALLY
Chapter 1: Hermeneutics Deep in the Woods
John van Buren, Fordham University
Chapter 2: " Morrow’s Ants: E. O. Wilson and Gadamer’s Critique of (Natural) Historicism"
Mick Smith, Queens University
Chapter 3: "Layering: Body, Building, Biography"
Robert Mugerauer, University of Washington
Chapter 4: "Might Nature Be Interpreted as a 'Saturated Phenomenon'?"
Christina M. Gschwandtner, University of Scranton
Chapter 5: "Must Environmental Philosophy Relinquish the Concept of Nature? A Hermeneutic Reply to Steven Vogel”
W. S. K. Cameron, Loyola Marymount University
SECTION II: ISSUES OF ENVIRONMENTAL HERMENEUTICS
A. SITUATING THE SELF
Chapter 6: "Environmental Hermeneutics and Environmental/Eco-Psychology: Explorations in Environmental Identity"
David Utsler, University of North Texas
Chapter 7: "Environmental Hermeneutics With and For Others: Ricoeur’s Ethics and The Ecological Self”
Nathan Bell, University of North Texas
Chapter 8: "Bodily Moods and Unhomely Environments: The Hermeneutics of Agoraphobia and the Spirit of Place”
Dylan Trigg, University of Sussex
B. NARRATIVITY AND IMAGE
Chapter 9: "Narrative and Nature: Appreciating and Understanding the Non-Human World"
Brian Treanor, Loyola Marymount University
Chapter 10: " The Question Concerning Nature"
Sean McGrath, Memorial University
Chapter 11: "New Nature Narratives: Landscape Hermeneutics and Environmental Ethics”
Martin Drenthen, Radboud University Nijmegen
C. ENVIRONMENTS, PLACE, AND THE EXPERIENCE OF TIME
Chapter 12: "Memory, Imagination, and the Hermeneutics of Place"
Forrest Clingerman, Ohio Northern University
Chapter 13: "The Betweenness of Monuments"
Janet Donohoe, University of West Georgia
Chapter 14: "My Place in the Sun"
David Wood, Vanderbilt University
Chapter 15: "How Hermeneutics Might Save the Life of (Environmental) Ethics"
Paul Van Tongeren, Radboud University Nijmegen and Paulien Snellen, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Paul Ricoeur's entire philosophical project narrates a "passion for the possible" expressed in th... more Paul Ricoeur's entire philosophical project narrates a "passion for the possible" expressed in the hope that in spite of death, closure, and sedimentation, life is opened by superabundance, by how the world gives us much more than is possible. Ricoeur's philosophical anthropology is a phenomenology of human capacity, which gives onto the groundless ground of human being, namely, God. Thus the story of the capable man, beginning with original goodness held captive by a servile will and ending with the possibility of liberation and regeneration of the heart, underpins his passion for the more than possible.
The essays in this volume trace the fluid movement between phenomenological and religious descriptions of the capable self that emerges across Ricoeur's oeuvre and establish points of connection for future developments that might draw inspiration from this body of thought.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: How Much More Than the Possible?
Brian Treanor and Henry Isaac Venema
Asserting Personal Capacities and Pleading for Mutual Recognition
Paul Ricoeur
Religious Belief: The Difficult Path of the Religious
Paul Ricoeur
Remembering Paul Ricoeur
David Pellauer
Capable Man, Capable God
Richard Kearney
The Source of Ricoeur’s Double Allegiance
Henry Isaac Venema
The Golden Rule and Forgiveness
Gaelle Fiasse
Toward Which Recognition?
Jean Greisch
Paul Ricoeur and Development Ethics
David M. Kaplan
Narrative Matters among the Mlabri: Interpretive Anthropology in
International Development
Ellen A. Herda
The Place of Remembrance: Reflections on Paul Ricoeur’s Theory
of Collective Memory
Jeffrey Andrew Barash
Refiguring Virtue
Boyd Blundell
Emplotting Virtue: Narrative and the Good Life
Brian Treanor
Preserving the Eidetic Moment: Reflections on the Work of Paul
Ricoeur
David Rasmussen
Thinking Film, 2023
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photo... more The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research," If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.
The Philosophers' Magazine, 2022
Brian Treanor argues for the importance of art, literature, poetry and philosophy even in the fac... more Brian Treanor argues for the importance of art, literature, poetry and philosophy even in the face of a burning world.
SubStance
Michel Serres was an exemplarily idiosyncratic thinker, idiosyncratic coming from the Greek idios... more Michel Serres was an exemplarily idiosyncratic thinker, idiosyncratic coming from the Greek idiosunkrasia (idios, "own," and krasis, "mixture"). His life and work exhibit a unique mixture of characteristics not often seen in combination: interests in the sciences and the humanities; deep learning with broad accessibility; theoretical sophistication and, at the same time, fidelity to and love for concrete experience, carnal embodiment, and hard (le dur) reality. And, of course, the notion of idiosyncrasy also testifies to Serres's interest in and particular experience of "mixed reality," which he developed in Le Cinq Sens and other works. 1
Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition (JPACT), 2018
Introduction to the first volume of the Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tr... more Introduction to the first volume of the Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition
Diakrisis Yearbook of Theology and Philosophy, 2018
Continental philosophy has maintained an abiding interest in transcendence; however, that interes... more Continental philosophy has maintained an abiding interest in transcendence; however, that interest has been shaped by the geographical, historical, and cultural milieu in which continental philosophy developed. But today "continental" philosophy is pursued beyond the boundaries of continental Europe, and it behooves us to ask what might be contributed to phenomenological and hermeneutic accounts of transcendence by traditions rooted in other places, other continents. Some of the first distinctive philosophical contributions of North America-"philosophical" in the sense that term is used in "Western" philosophy-are to be found in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, in particular, gave voice to a very different view of transcendence. Thoreau and those thinking in his wake-Henry Bugbee, Annie Dillard, and others-think transcendence in terms of nature, particularly wilderness, in terms of contact, and in terms of wandering or itinerancy. Here transcendence is less about trans-ascendance and its focus on another world, and more about a mode of living deeply in this world.
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photo... more The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research," If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.
Today we are faced with all the traditional reasons to despair: poverty, loneliness, loss, traged... more Today we are faced with all the traditional reasons to despair: poverty, loneliness, loss, tragedy, death, and the like. And, for many, this despair is exacerbated by either the modern disenchantment of the world, or a postmodern suspicion regarding grand narratives (especially those speculating about transcendence), or both. The news of the day sounds a relentless drumbeat of woe. As I write these words on a rainy morning in southern California—itself a depressing reminder of the apocalyptic drought my state is suffering, and the anthropogenic climate change that is likely to make such droughts more common and more severe—the headlines include: the ongoing brutality of the “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria; increasing tensions between Russia and the West, including frightening near-misses involving unregistered military aircraft; the stillsmoldering catastrophe of Ebola Zaire in West Africa (and parallel, though much less publicized, stories of MERS and H5N1, either of which, in a ...
Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy
This paper reflects on experiences of what i call vitality. Such experiences are neither idiosync... more This paper reflects on experiences of what i call vitality. Such experiences are neither idiosyncratic (they overlap major themes in Chinese philosophy, among other disciplines) nor mere romanticism (contemporary psychology lends credence to these accounts). Moreover, while some figures in continental philosophy do address the body—as perceiving, as sexed, as political—there has been almost no attention given to the active body of vitality. Drawing from the work of Michel Serres, this paper will uncover some of the significant features of such bodily experiences.
Comparative and Continental Philosophy, 2016
Philosophy, by and large, tends to dwell on what might be called the woeful nature of reality—fin... more Philosophy, by and large, tends to dwell on what might be called the woeful nature of reality—finitude, suffering, loss, death, and the like. While these topics are no doubt worthy of philosophical concern, undue focus on them tends to obscure other facets of our experience and of reality, giving philosophy a temperament that could justifiably be called melancholic. Without besmirching the value of such inquiry, this paper suggests that philosophers have largely ignored the experience of joy and, consequently, missed its distinctive contributions to our understanding of the meaningfulness of life and the goodness of being. Traditional accounts of the problem of evil are rooted in what John D. Caputo calls “strong theology,” which tends to construe evil as a problem to which God should supply the answer or solution. However, if we call into question traditional accounts of omnipotence, evil ceases to be a problem, and we become free to engage it as part of what Gabriel Marcel calls “the mystery of being.” Thus liberated, we are free to assess more clearly phenomena missed by melancholic accounts of being, among them the experience of joy, attested to in diverse forms of philosophy, literature, memoir, and elsewhere.
“Hope in the Age of the Anthropocene” in Analecta Hermeneutica, vol. 6 (2015). Reprinted as “Ho... more “Hope in the Age of the Anthropocene” in Analecta Hermeneutica, vol. 6 (2015).
Reprinted as “Hope in the Age of the Anthropocene” in Ecology, Ethics, and Hope, ed. Andrew Brei (Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).
Carnal Hermeneutics, ed. Kearney and Treanor, Fordham University Press, 2015
nally, with the interesting work being done in the post-Wittgensteinian philosophies of Stanley C... more nally, with the interesting work being done in the post-Wittgensteinian philosophies of Stanley Cavell, Stephen Mulhull, Hilary Putnam, Robert Brandom and other proponents of linguistic pragmatism who resist metaphysical dualism and redirect our attention to the richness of ordinary human experience in the fl ow of life. One does well to recall Wittgenstein's claims in the Philosophical Investigations, that "the human body is the best picture of the soul" and that human meaning comes in "forms of life."
Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics, 2013
Phenomenologies of the Stranger: Between Hostility and Hospitality, 2011
Religion and the Arts, Jan 1, 2010
Environmental Philosophy, 2018
Environmental Hermeneutics: In Memory of W.S.K. Cameron. Environmental Philosophy, vol.15, no.1 (... more Environmental Hermeneutics: In Memory of W.S.K. Cameron. Environmental Philosophy, vol.15, no.1 (Spring 2018).